Tuesday, 12 April 2016

The Panama Papers: Who leaked the biggest leak in history?

Hero or Whistleblower?

Patriot or Traitor?

Imagine working a 40 hour, sometimes even a 60 hour week. You’re drained…. mentally and physically, then at the end of the month, you see that your paycheck is taxed even more for the overtime you put in or the bonus you’ve been given. As a hard working citizen, we all feel the right to earn more than what we’ve been getting yet we still have hope that all this tax we pay is going towards making our environment a better place.

Come a crisp April 2016 morning, you wake up to find your phone abuzz with notifications for something called The Panama Papers. Upon reading, you’re outraged. “I have to pay taxes and these wealthy bastards haven’t?”

I can understand that outrage. It’s only natural to feel slighted. We slave and slave away, just to earn that middle-class figure only to have it taxed and then there are people out there who earn boat loads of money yet somehow find a way Not to pay taxes. How is that fair?

The Panama papers is the largest data leak in history, dwarfing the data released by the Wikileaks organization in 2010. For context, if the amount of data released by Wikileaks was equivalent to the population of San Francisco, the amount of data released in the Panama Papers is the equivalent to that of India! 11.5 million Documents, 2.6 TB in total. That’s two thousand, six hundred gigabytes! My president can’t even pronounce that! Seriously just Google: “Zuma can't count”

The most astounding part is that the documents were actually made available in early 2015! For a whole year, a consortium of journalists kept this information under wraps. And who said there was no journalistic credibility left in the world? Oh right I was one of them. My bad.

The consortium having been researching the hell out of these documents and Still, have ways to go.

Here is a categorized list of all the current names released from the Panama papers records.

The biggest fall-out since the release has been Icelandic Prime Minister, Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson stepping down due to the mounting protest from the people. Booyah! You sow what you reap buddy. He denies that his stepping down had nothing to do with his conscience but we all know the truth.
Furthermore, Africa loses $50 billion a year due to tax evasion and other illicit practices and its 50-year losses top a trillion dollars.

But I’m not here to talk about what the Panama Papers are now about the recent findings. Those can all be found here and there and everywhere, just hashtag #panamapapers

P.s xxxxx Let’s be honest here, it’s no surprise to see who was listed, it’s the same politicians and professionals we’ve suspected for years. I suppose Jackie Chan would be the greatest surprise. Although let me point out that not every person listed is involved in illegal activity. Least of all a tax haven. The company did do some legal activity (only some). What I really would have liked to have seen, is the Pope or the Dalai Lama! Now that would be a brilliant twist. Hey if you literally saw what priests and religious figures get paid, you would question them too.

So Who leaked the biggest leak in history?

Here’s the best, best part, nobody knows!! As with the public polls of Edward Snowden, many should be grateful to this “John Doe” whistleblower for finally providing more than tangible proof that the rich and powerful are avoiding taxes, laundering money and in some cases supporting horrible acts of war.

Mossack Fonseca, the company at the heart of all of this, claims to be above reproach (way to dig your own grave). They say that they’re the victim of a hack to their email servers. Pffttt. Way to try and save face #MOSSUCK

I don’t buy that, it’s the easy way out. Do you?

Could this John Doe actually be a Jane Doe or could it be a group of John and Jane Does? Who knows?

Why did he/she choose the German newspaper?

All I know is that this makes for brilliant creative writing and I’m going to get right to that while this hype is hot! What did he/she/they have to go through to get this data leaked to the world? What obstacles did they face? Was it happenstance or a mission that lead him/her/them to the documents? Was he/she/they former employees of #MOSSUCK Fonseca? Or maybe former clients? So many great questions to fictionally answer.

Well wherever he/she/they are, we owe them a great deal for thanks for being so brave. I mean Vladimir Putin is no man to be trifled with nor are the other powerful people the Panama Papers list. They could be on the run for the rest or their natural born lives. What fun!

This just goes to show, NO ONE is above reproach and EVERY ONE has something to hide, even something as little as “Who ate my double-creamed and frosted sundae?!”

I’m definitely writing a short story on this. Will update this post and create a new one as soon as it’s finished. If you would like to join in, let’s connect J

What are your thoughts on all of this drama? Share your thoughts with me, all thoughts are welcome.

If you enjoyed this post, I’d be honored if you’d help it spread by emailing it to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook/Tumblr. Thank you!

Update 2016/04/19*

This Post was Shared/Featured in the French Online Press: http://panamapapers.press/

So honored by this!

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Update 2016/04/20* Irvin Joel of the Tracking Courier Website, is a regular follower of this blog. Upon reading this post, he became inspired to research more on the Panama Papers news. Using his unique skills, he has created an impressively brilliant InfoGraphic displaying the Panama Papers news in One picture.

The Tracking Courier Websiteis a great website for tracking your shipment, package or consignment from multiple international courier services for free.

So Honored by this!

By Irvin Joel

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Update 2016/05/12*

The beloved Emma Watson has been named in the leaked documents detailing individuals with offshore companies and accounts!

But the Harry Potter actress says she only set up a company in the British Virgin Islands to protect personal details about herself. In a statement to the Spectator, her representatives wrote:

"Emma (like many high-profile individuals) set up an offshore company for the sole purpose of protecting her anonymity and safety. U.K. companies are required to publicly publish details of their shareholders and therefore do not give her the necessary anonymity required to protect her personal safety, which has been jeopardised in the past owing to such information being publicly available."

Update 2016/12/01*Whistle* can you believe we're in December already? Feels like only yesterday I wrote this post.Over the past eight months, governments have reported using Panama Papers to help recoup or seize tens of millions of dollars in unpaid taxes or other assets, including more than $80 million in Colombia, $1 million in Slovenia and 375 pounds of silver bullion in Australia. Billions more are being traced for potential tax evasion.

65 comments:

I'd love to think this is the turning point for global tax transparency, and yet the cynic in me thinks it'll soon be forgotten and little will change. All it'll take is another scandal or crisis and our attention will be diverted elsewhere, never to return.

The question as to who would leak it would probably be someone who is tired of what they're experiencing or someone who couldn't take what he's seeing anymore. It's a good wake up call to those up there playing with people's hard earned money. Every government is like that, apparently.

It's amazing to me how ambivalent people can become. I guess that is partly how people with power and influence can abuse and misuse it seemingly so easily. No one questions there actions or intentions often until after the fact.

Brilliant article. I have seen a document about the author of Wikileaks in 80's about three days ago and I understand why this John Doe avoids publicity - if Wikileaks Man was pushed by USA government then this John Doe... well how many people would try to push him/her/them back?

I have heard of the Panama Papers but never really knew what it was until this post. Thanks. I love reading educational posts like this. I wish there was one like this here in the Philippines. I'm sure we'd have the same outrage.

I wish more people knew the details about the Panama Papers. I actually think the diagram you included is super helpful! I just hate that it doesn't seem to matter what people expose because people just assume there's corruption and therefore it's normalized... but I wish we'd stop settling for mediocre, corrupt figureheads.

It's so annoying because we never hear the whole truth we hear what they want us to hear. I don't even watch the news anymore because I am a huge believe that we create the reality we want! This was a very though provoking article def enjoyed it! ty

I think there are only a handful of real honest people in government. I work my butt off and get so frustrated looking at my paycheck with huge deductions for taxes and the like. I hope the future generation would be spared from this kind of abuse from people in power.

This issue is so huge and this was a great read. I am very upset that we are having this problem or that others think they are above everyone else. I do think that not everyone is like this. However, it is super uncommon. Thank you for sharing this! http://viabella-thebeautifullife.blogspot.com/